Lithuanian metal music festival Devilstone Open Air 2010 - which took place last July in the little town of Anyksciai - has gained a serious amount of criticism from the religious community. The Prosecution Service even started a pre-investigation whether or not the festival has provoked religious disunion.

According to an official press release, the festival has been highly acclaimed by its target fans and the broad society... except for the religious community of the town. Recently a group of local Catholics and the Dean of the local church publicly expressed their opponent attitude towards the festival. These people even initiated a pre-trial investigation accusing the festival and/or one of the festival's headliners Mayhem of provoking religious disunion.

Local Catholics and the Dean declare their religious feelings have been insulted as they witnessed the photos of the band's performance where Mayhem front-man Attila Csihar wore something similar to a cassock, had an inverted cross, bloody mask and a gallows loop.

The Dean applied to the Ministry of Justice which in turn forwarded the case back to the local Prosecution Service of Anyksciai. The pre-trial investigation is in the process and the organizers of the festival are scheduled to express their statement next week.

In the meanwhile such unprecedented case has been highlighted by Lithuanian media and is being hastily discussed by the society. The majority express their negative reaction to the initiators of the case, comparing the present situation with the middle ages. On the other side a minority defends the Dean and the religious community, stating that the festival and its content are harmful for people's moral.

The organizer of the festival - ALT events - justifies the festival, the band and the festival's nature, as the aim of it is not to provoke disunity among religious, national, racial, ethnic or any other groups of people. The organizer stands for the viewpoint that even the most extreme and radical shows on stage should be considered as art of performance; the freedom of artistic expression should not be restrained, was it black metal music or a piece of contemporary art.

It is expected that such unwanted confrontation between the festival and religious institution would not determine the end of festival's existence. The relation with local authorities of the church has been complicated since the debut of the festival in 2009, when the Dean aimed to ban the festival for its title "Devilstone" and for its last year's headliner Sepultura, which, according to the Dean, was a Satanic band.

Devilstone Open Air occurred for the second time this year in Anyksciai, was headlined by Norwegian band Mayhem, Sweden's Grave and Germany's Tankard, featured by 15 more bands from all over Europe, and held an audience of about 1500 people.

"Local Catholics and the Dean declare their religious feelings have been insulted"

In the 21st Century, can we please just acknowledge that religious sentiments have no more exemption from criticism than any other. Otherwise I'll have to declare my feelings insulted regarding the Catholic Church's ridiculous pontifications on what we should and shouldn't be doing.

Perhaps the local community could look at the big picture and realise that Devilstone is actually giving them some important culture and (presumably) income...or are they so blinkered that they'll shoot themselves in the foot just to preserve their own feelings of security.

Guess what, guys? A bloke with a beard once said to turn the other cheek. Then he got nailed to a tree. He didn't complain about his feelings, though.

"when the Dean aimed to ban the festival for its title "Devilstone" and for its last year's headliner Sepultura, which, according to the Dean, was a Satanic band" - LOL LOL LOL

I mean, seriously? I hope local people really don't care much about these sick people's beliefs. After all, it's their choice whether to look at these pictures or not. Besides that, they do insult us, too by calling our music 'bad' , 'wrong' or whatever. Art must not be judged like that. It simply mustn't...

Anyway. I respect people who have different beliefs as long as they don't mess up with my religious point of view.

It says Tankard played there. I believe Tankard's guitarist, Andy Gutjahr, is a christian. I wonder what he thinks of the church opposing the festival. Maybe the band has to like drag him out every time to come play. And hes all like "nooo, i don't want to play metal and sing about Satan, its bad" and they're like "you're going to do it and you're going to like it! and we're going to pay you in BEER". Then the next thing he knows he wakes up on stage drunk and playing guitar and hes all like "man this is awesome, hail Satan!" Yeah, thats probably how it goes down every time.

This is an amusing story, and not surprising when you think about it. Just imagine Attila and the tour crew storming into this peaceful, quaint little town of pious old folks. I'm sure they proved quite the disruption. Good to know Mayhem is doing their job :]

I have only one thing to say on the matter: Fuck religion and fuck those who still care for and defend those obsolete ideas in 2010. Hail to the freedom of speaking and thinking. And may the mental enslavement that religion is disappear.

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They shake your hand and they smile and they buy you a drink
They say we'll be your friends we'll stick with you till the end
But everybody's only looking out for themselves
And you say who can you trust I'll tell you nobody